If you have a few minutes, I suggest you check out the Internet Archive. It’s a non-profit organization with several projects that are well-aligned with Kopimist values. Among many other useful tools, they currently run the Open Library, the WayBack Machine, Open Community Networks, and Nasa Images Archive. To see a full list of their projects, click here.

Their projects embody the spirit of Kopimi with a professional level of organization and dedication. These wonderful people have devoted their time to activities embodying our holy sacrament, the collection and dissemination of information.

They are currently fundraising, so if you’d like to donate to a cause that is Kopimist-aligned through-and-through, then please consider The Internet Archive.

Datalove be with you,

AdVATAR

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

The First United Church of Kopimism, US has conducted it’s first-ever local digital service. There were approximately 12 people present, and 7 participated in the service. In accordance with Kopimi tradition, the physical space was declared a local interaction point for Kopimist worship. Participants then connected to a Wi-Fi network labeled KopimiBox, which was being served by a slightly-modified version of The Pirate Box (see picture for our version). After connecting, users were free to upload and download at will.

The event was a tremendous success, as there were no significant connectivity problems. Many thanks to the wonderful people associated with the Pirate Box project for their excellent Wiki and tireless work to ensure the continued innovation of wireless, anonymous dataspace. We chose the Pirate Box platform for our worship service because it ensured anonymity, prevented malicious connectivity to the internet, and readily mobile. The Pirate Box software was run on a TP-Link 150 Mbps TL-MR3020 open WRT router connected to a standard 120V wall socket.

’til next time,
seed the sacrament,
AdVATAR

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

There is a wonderful group of people out there creating an, electronic library of great literary works. These people, though not necessarily Kopimist in name, are truly acting in the spirit of the holy principle of kopimi. Originally founded by Michael Hart in 1971, the collection has grown from a single copy of The U.S. Declaration of Independence to include more than 40,000 items. All of the books on their site are in the public domain, meaning that they can be copied, remixed, and shared legally by everyone because copyright has either expired, or has been waived (such as in the case of U.S. government documents). More information about what it means for something to be in the public domain can be found here or here.

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

We are thrilled to see the Holy Kopimist texts translated into Russian! The article, which can be found here is a full translation of The Church of Kopimism’s Constitution. We hope eventually to interconnect all cultures and languages with the culture of Kopimi.

Connection through culture sheds chaos,
AdVATAR

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

Kopimists, I am disgusted with Minnesota, and you should be too. Minnesotan legislators have denied Coursera the ability to provide free college-level coursework to Minnesota residents. The original article that I’m referencing can be found here.

It’s free coursework.

Free coursework.

Free.

Well, now it’s also

Denied.

Ultimately, this is about money. The state board requires anyone wishing to offer collegiate courses to Minnesota residents to register, in the process paying a $1,200 annual fee, with the state. Both the behavior on the part of Minnesota’s government, and the asinine excuse given for the behavior, are despicable. They claim to hope to prevent people from wasting their time or money on ill-conceived courses. Meanwhile, Minnesotan students can pay to take courses at the highly-profitable, but highly ineffective, University of Phoenix, where course quality and student retention are so piss-poor that the federal government is considering changing the law to prevent federal education grants from being used to pay for online coursework. It’s an entire industry built off of bilking people for their money on the hope that the online courses will help them get a better job. So, because the University of Phoenix sells a crappy product for profit and makes off like bandits with the saved-pennies of the ignorant, hopeful masses, they can afford to pay the $1,200 annual fee. Because the free, University-supported Coursera program is… free… did I mention it’s free?… free, they are punished.
In case you are wondering whether or not a crooked organization like the University of Phoenix is really allowed to teach courses in Minnesota:
I have no doubt that the good people, particularly the Kopimists, within Minnesota would not approve of this action on the part of their state government, particularly when it’s disguised as an overly-paternal guard against time-wasting with respect to free online courses. We do not endorse specific candidates or legislation or political parties. It doesn’t matter who perpetrates these anti-Kopimist acts, only that they are perpetrated and must be reversed.

EDIT: The Minnesota government has reached out to new sources to declare that they will revisit this issue shortly to decide a more appropriate course of action. We hope that they choose not to prevent open access to free course work through Coursera or any other free information sources, but only time will tell what their final decision will be.

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

Media companies that deal in the trading of abstractions have the most to lose from online piracy. Or at least, that’s the assumption. But common sense would suggest that a movie like the Avengers, leaked a week before its release, would suffer a critical economic hit. Instead, it became the third highest grossing movie of all time, and a Forbes article states that even if every pirate that downloaded the movie had purchased a ticket box office revenues would have increased by just half of a percent.

Online piracy is one of the most divisive and least understood phenomena to erupt out of the creation of the internet. Businesses rail against what they perceive as theft. Ethicists debate the morality of file sharing. Lawyers pursue claims in the hundreds of thousands against grandmothers and students as courtrooms struggle to understand the efficacy of IP addresses in identifying responsibility. Intellectual property has suddenly become the most popular field of law, and there are now more patent lawyers that at any other point in history. But is it possible to truly sell or steal if there is an infinite supply? Business and law students are not just witnesses to this pivotal moment but will play a critical roll in how we answer this question and shape a future out of the fragments of a broken economic paradigm. Check out the infographic to learn more about piracy and how artists like comedian Louis C.K. are innovating even while they’re industry is falling all around them.

This introduction to the following infographic was provided by Katherine at the Online Graduate Programs organization. The infographic on their site can be found here.

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

If you haven’t already heard, Kim Dotcom is well on his way to creating a massive, socially-integrated creative content distribution site. It will remove the distribution middlemen and high-cost publicity aspects from connecting artists with their music. If you’d like to see the video, it’s embedded below. Kim Dotcom’s brave act of bringing creators and consumers of culture closer together truly is a Kopimist act, and is being celebrated by our church.

Help others receive the holy message!

Like this:

Kopimism is an inclusive religion. In the past, we made sure to acknowledge both PC and Mac users when describing the holy ritual of copy, paste by including both Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V as well as command+C, command+V.

Have any of you wondered what left-handed people use for copy, paste?

Let’s all take a moment to celebrate Kopimism through a different action: Ctrl+insert, Shift+Insert. This form of copy, paste can easily be used by left-handed people to worship at will, without the need for the left hand to leave the mouse, or the right hand to cross over the keyboard. Just remember: you cannot hold down the insert key between Ctrl and Shift, even though you can hold down the Ctrl key between C and V using the right-handed method.

Take a moment to copy, paste from a lefty’s perspective. It might just change the way you see the world.

Many thanks to my Kopimist friend for bringing this to the attention of the church. His act of sharing brings light to the world.